I can see it now, sterile (besides pure cultures added) robot manufactured under slight possitive pressure enviroment (to prevent any contamination) vacuum sealed cheddars being exchange in the stock market like coffee or cocoa.

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Amatuar winemaker,baker, cook and musician not in any particular order.

I would like to start this thread again to pursue some of the ideas. When I searched for 'whey starters' to find a relevant thread I got about 6 million returns (a bit like searching for 'cheese' on here I guess!) so if this is in the wrong place and there is a better place for it please feel free to move it...

But, I am interested in starting my own whey culture for an Italian style (asiago) cheese made by the local Italian population when they settled in this area at the beginning of the 19th century. (They were on their way to Argentina but were dropped off here - which is another story) I have talked about this cheese with PAV in the past and with his help I have developed a very nice hard cheese using commercial cultures.

I now want to take it a step further by creating a raw milk whey starter that I can use to inoculate milk when making this cheese.

So my questions are:

1. what is the best way to start this process of creating my own whey starter?2. could some one point me to the thread that talks about quantities to use and inoculate the cheese milk? (I think I found it once before but have lost it)3. If I only make this cheese once every week or two weeks how can I preserve the whey starter?

Thanks.

NV.

EDIT: I have just found Linuxboy's thread about making thermophile whey starters so I will have a good read of this and I now realise the word I need to search for is 'clabber'.

If anyone can point me in the direction of other useful threads then please feel free. Thanks.

1. what is the best way to start this process of creating my own whey starter?

My process is more clasically Italian, and Alp's is more in line with Alpine tradition. Both would work. Or adjust it to your needs. There are separate phases... 1) isolation 2) stabilization 3) storage 4) propagation for commercial production. Plus, the R&D, of course, to create prototypes and finetune flavor.

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2. could some one point me to the thread that talks about quantities to use and inoculate the cheese milk? (I think I found it once before but have lost it)

1-2% bulk equivalent. Depends on the cheese. For that Asiago, should be around 1.5%

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3. If I only make this cheese once every week or two weeks how can I preserve the whey starter?

Cheers, Paul. Hope that helps. It's VERY feasible to do at your scale. email me or post here if you need help getting it all going. IMHO, every cheesemaker should be "required" to make their own cultures. The cadence of the cheeselife is NOT the same without it.

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Taking an extended leave (until 2015) from the forums to build out my farm and dairy. Please e-mail or PM if you need anything.

I'm not so much talking about home cheesemakers who have inherent limitations, starting with milk sourcing, but with industry folks who are IMHO not necessarily producing cheese art born out of suffering and overcoming struggle. If you're familiar with Robert Parker and wine, it's like the cheese version of Parkerization.

Revisiting this thread, particularly as I seem to be getting geeked again about acquiring cultures and doctoring, all to emulate a cheese from across the ocean, made with pristine, raw milk - none of which I currently have. But will have. So my energies need to go back and devote themselves to extending, perhaps intensifying, at most, the essential character of upcoming spring and summer milks, for my tommes and likely beauforts.

This is a fascinating thread that I have only just happened upon. It touches on my own interests somewhat. I suppose I'm not so adverse to commercial, mass-produced, industrial ways of making cheese but it's not something I have any interest in replicating it in my own at-home cheesemaking practices. I'm more interested in using older, more traditional cheesemaking practices at home - not just because tradition is nice - but because it's all so deeply cool. Working with wild cultures, heirloom cultures, forming a cheese in some old pot in the sink, with unpasteurised milk and fig sap or nettles - it is amazingly fun. I feel like a magician every time I get a pot of milk to curdle. Anyway, that's just my personal philosophy

The discussion about whey starters is interesting - it may be something to look at in future years - but I'm interested in the related subject of cultivating wild cultures. Is there a thread about this? I'm thinking of either making a wild culture from just setting a pot of raw milk aside to clabber into yoghurt, or from an introduced outside source (I think I've heard that lacto-bacilli are quite fond of the tops of capsicums?) Would the cultures that result be principally thermophilic? Would they tend to be heirloom/long-life cultures because the bacteria are living in the wild anyway, as it were, on their wits? Or would the richness of the bacterial strains that result not necessarily contribute to long-life? This may be something to look into this year. I'd imagine you wouldn't need too much milk to make an initial starter....